


What is left behind

by endlessblu



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: (perhaps - just in case), Angst, Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Homelessness, One Shot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sacking of Coruscant, Trauma, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25715458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endlessblu/pseuds/endlessblu
Summary: Melodramatic vignettes of Ticcer's life, from the Sacking of Coruscant to revenge on Skavak. Oneshot.
Kudos: 5





	What is left behind

_14._

Days tend to all start the same. Wake up, get out of bed. No indication something will change your life forever. 

Ticcer was with friends when it all started. Sharing jokes, trading silly insults, the usual things a teenager gets up to. His sister Kyria wasn't far away, sharing a packet of sweets with another girl and giggling at passers by. It could have been any day. 

When they heard the first rumble, they didn't give it a second thought. 

Coruscant was noisy by nature, a city planet that never truly slept. Time was arbitrary anyway when you were too low down to see the sun. Whether it was coming from above or below, or on the same level, there would always be some sort of commotion going on. Learning not to take notice was key to living there. 

The second rumble, and the booms and bangs that followed, they were harder to ignore. 

The ground shook more than he'd ever known it before, knocking him down onto his hands and knees. Buildings started to crumble around him, city streets turning into piles of rubble in a matter of seconds. The stench of something burning caught his throat, the smoke and dust choking his attempts to breathe. 

As he tried to stand, he focused on one thing. Kyria. 

He could hear screams, but he couldn't tell whose they were. They could have been his own, for all he knew. He scrambled forwards, stumbling towards where he'd seen her last. 

Chunks of buildings fell from above. A scrap of rubble made contact with the side of his face. He barely felt it. Amazing what a singular determination to save a person you loved could do for you. 

He never knew how they survived that day when so many others didn't. Even their parents hadn't, crushed as their shop was reduced to ruins. The rooms above that had once been their home were now nothing more than a heap of bricks to return to. 

Everything was different now. All they had was each other. 

The Republic did their best in those first days after. Food and shelter for the displaced, promises to rebuild. Some senators even made it down to their level to help out, meet those affected. 

But the time between those visits grew longer. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and years. Gradually they'd been forgotten. The senators went back to focusing on themselves, forgetting the population were on their knees. 

All they could do was fend for themselves. Find some way, any way, to survive. 

And one day, he'd make the Empire pay for what they took from him. 

* * * * * * * * 

_17._

Kyria wasn't supposed to get caught up in this. There were sacrifices that he'd needed to make, going from a cheeky teenager to an adult in the course of a morning, but Kyria deserved to hold onto whatever childhood he could give her. 

She didn't see it like that of course. She was too smart for her own good, much cleverer than him and just as determined. She was the one that was supposed to make something of herself, and her future had been snatched away in a single morning. When she looked at him with those big, innocent, pleading eyes, how could he say no to her? 

She was the same age now as he'd been when this had all started, after all. Something she liked to remind him. At some point he had to let her do things on her own. 

But she always had such an appetite for risk. They were just like each other that way. Maybe she'd even picked it up from him. 

He should have protested more when she said where she was going. Should have been with her from the start. Should have stopped her from going at all. Too many should haves, might have beens. 

He couldn't have stopped his parents dying, but he could have saved _her._

When he arrived it was all too late. The gangs were warring again, and somehow she'd been caught between them. Left as a body on the ground that neither side cared to stop for. But he couldn't see anything else, hear anything in the world around him. He clutched at her failing body, shaking, never wanting to let go. 

She had enough strength to put her hand on his face one last time. 

“Ledri...” 

It was the last time anyone used that name. 

He remembered arriving at the hospital, carrying her body in his arms. He couldn't remember how he made it there. It didn't matter anyway. Nothing mattered now. He had nothing left. 

* * * * * * * * 

_19._

Survival was the priority. Looking after one's self. Caring for others had only ended up with him getting hurt. Best to look inwards, be your own number one. 

Nobody to hold him back either. He'd gotten more ambitious as time had gone by. The risk was higher, but so were the rewards. 

And when it had gone wrong, prison had only taught him how far he _could_ push the line. It was supposed to be a deterrent; it had actually been more of a learning experience. 

He could spot spacers from a mile away. Cloudheads, they'd always called them down on the lower levels. People who'd gotten too much air to their brains, made their heads go all funny. Perfect targets for a con or a bit of light theft. 

This guy was clearly one. Fancy clothes: some swishy cape that flowed behind him effortlessly, boots that were far too clean to have seen hard work. Not a single hair out of place, facial hair trimmed to perfection. Obviously lived a life of luxury, probably not a clue about the real world. An easy target. 

Or maybe not such an easy target after all. He'd always considered himself a master of the con, but this one had unravelled. Badly. 

He hadn't wanted to kill him, it was just a matter of self defence. 

It was the first time he'd killed anyone. He might have caused serious injuries before, but it had never gotten this far. 

The world was spinning faster than it normally did. Had his heart always been so loud? 

He rifled through the man's pockets, not really knowing what he was looking for. Credit chips mostly, money to survive a few more months. 

Probably not a datapad with codes to a ship. But he couldn't turn that down. 

He'd always wanted his ticket off this planet, he'd just never envisaged the day actually coming. 

When he saw the sky, it was the first time he'd stopped running all day. He couldn't have moved his feet even for all his will. The air felt different: cooler, lighter. He'd never realised how dense it had always been. Colours he never knew existed, even his own green skin looked different in the sunlight. Everything seemed so clean, not mired in decades of muck and pollution. It may as well have been a different planet. 

Maybe he couldn't blame cloudheads for being like they were if _this_ was the world they knew. 

But no amount of awe would make him belong. 

The sky, those beautiful stars that filled it, they would be his home now. 

He’d forgotten what having a home had felt like. 

* * * * * * * * 

_24._

Smuggling had started as a great adventure, an opportunity he'd fallen into by chance. What his old boss had called his 'happy accident' when he turned up with that spacer's ship full of guns. 

It wasn't some spacer's ship now. It was his. 

The first big thing he could say he owned. The first home he'd truly known in years. 

Living in a dead man's ship had been odd at first, but it turned out that sort of thing was commonplace in this new world he'd found. Finders keepers, that was the rule. 

He rechristened her the _Firebird_ , people started calling him Captain. It suited him. She became as much a part of his identity as anything else. 

Not just a ship. She was home. 

It burned him badly when Skavak ran off with her. Wastoid didn't know what he'd taken from him. Nobody seemed to fully understand. 

Without her, he was just that kid on Coruscant again, struggling for scraps and a place to sleep. 

He'd told himself he didn't have to be that person any more. 

He was going to kill that son of a hutt for ever making him feel like that again. 

* * * * * * * * 

_24._

He didn't really know how he'd ended up with a crew of his own. 

Corso tagged along after Ord Mantell. Skavak had wronged him too, betrayed his trust and run off with his best gun. He didn't really understand how someone could be so attached to a gun, but each to their own. 

Kid was a bit too keen for his tastes, too much enthusiasm and faith in the Republic, wanting to be the good guy. 

Almost like he had been when he was younger. Before all the hope got kicked out of him. There were only a couple of years between them, but sometimes it felt like decades. 

But he was a good kid at least. Wouldn't double cross him. Appreciated the _Firebird_ when they got her back. Hated Skavak. The key things for a first mate. 

Risha turned up on Coruscant, not that he had any choice in the matter. He didn't know if he trusted her, but something about her kept drawing him back. 

She was promising to make him rich too, which was a big plus point. 

And she cared for the ship as well, even making the kind of upgrades he'd always dreamed of but never managed to afford. 

He wasn't sure what she got out of this arrangement. Or where she sourced these mysterious items he kept on delivering for her. But he didn't want her to leave. 

With all the bad memories Coruscant had dredged up, he didn't know if he even would have had enough in him to protest. So much there was the same, but he felt like an outsider now. He couldn't tell if that was a good thing or not. 

Bowdaar joined the crew on Nar Shaddaa. He couldn't have let him take that fight alone, and having a big guy would be useful, anyway. He'd never be able to fully understand all the things the Wookiee had been through, but he could understand how important it was to choose your own fate. 

It was good for them to stick together. 

Somehow the four of them had become a family. They might bicker all the time, but they were comfortable together. He was in charge, but they were equals off the job. He was learning to enjoy himself, enjoy being around people again. 

The stakes were getting higher, but this time he wasn't alone. 

* * * * * * * * 

_25._

Skavak. No matter where they travelled, what they did, he kept cropping up. Mercs sent after them on Taris, the man's ex-girlfriends trying to kill him to win back favour, cheating him during his job on Alderaan. 

Even his name was horrible. Skavak. Harsh on the mouth. An ugly sound. 

Just thinking of the man filled him with white hot rage. A gloating reminder of the pain he caused. The same pain the Empire had caused all those years ago. He'd turned him back into that scared fourteen year old, who didn't know where he'd sleep from day to day, who swore revenge on the Empire for taking away the life he knew. 

This wasn't a mere annoyance. This was personal. A matter of principle. 

He shouldn't have been surprised when he popped up again after the trip to the Long Shadow. It was supposed to be his big moment, but Skavak just had to go and get in the way. 

Killing him was a form of catharsis. So many things he'd been holding on to all came out in that one moment. 

He'd learnt a long time ago that one man with a blaster and all the luck in the world couldn't take down an Empire by himself. 

But he could take down Skavak. He could make him pay. 

It wouldn't bring back the life he'd once known. His sister. His parents. His home. Anything that he'd lost. But it could ease the pain. 

Just for a moment.


End file.
